Using Man Pages In Linux Mint / Ubuntu : A Brief Primer

The most effective way to do things in Linux Mint / Ubuntu is through the Terminal as it is quicker and involves less repetition as compared to point and click.

The cool thing about this is that one doesn’t need to remember all the commands that are actually present. That’s what the man (manual) pages are there for. Using man pages for finding specific commands can be very effective and convenient.

A simple way to get a list of commands that do something specific is to combine the man command with specific word.

Few examples as shown below :

1. To find commands that use the word debug in their description, simply type man -k debug :

Also, when in doubt about what a command really does, just type man <command name>. For example :

man ping

Or even man man ( 🙂 – this will show a man page on how to use the man command in detail).

In a nutshell, there is no need to remember all the commands for using the Linux Terminal at all, few basic ones should be ok and for the rest, using man pages should be pretty comprehensive. (Here is our free ebook that covers most basic commands in order to use Terminal effectively).

So there you go, it is actually fun and interesting to use the Terminal (more so in Linux than in Windows unless it is Powershell).